Review: 'Watermelon Hill' offers poignant tale of unwed mothers at History Theatre in St. Paul

"The trouble with adoption," one of the young women in "Watermelon Hill" tells the audience, "is that you have to give the baby to other human beings."

It seems such an odd statement, but taken in context it reveals the wisdom of these expectant, unwed mothers. They know what humans are capable of and it often is not pretty.

So no wonder that Leah wishes she could keep her baby, that Joan sees each day as a gamble and Sharon wonders whether she some day will want to re-connect with the child she is giving up for adoption.

These three teenagers occupy the center of Lily Baber Coyle's melancholy, poignant play, which opened Saturday at History Theatre in St. Paul. We are asked to care that everything will turn out OK for Leah, Joan and Sharon while they wait, out of the public's eye, to complete their pregnancies, turn over their infants for adoption and then disappear again into the world.

Baber Coyle's play was first performed at History Theatre in 2001. She based the piece on ideas from "Shadow Mothers," a book by Linda Back McKay about the women who were shuffled through the Catholic Infant Home in St. Paul up through the late 1960s. It was a place for girls "in trouble," who had gotten pregnant and had few options.

Leah (Aeysha Kinnunen), Sharon (Adelin Phelps) and Joan (Emily Gunyou Halaas) alternately step out of time to ruminate on their lives long after the events of the play and reflect on the scars they have incurred. Each woman also has a surreal episode amid the day-to-day boredom of going out for gut bombs at White Castle or buying smokes in the Midway Shopping Center (this is 1965, after all).

Director Anya Kremenetsky deftly lets Baber Coyle's characters tell their own stories. Sean Dillon and Janet Hayes Trow play a variety of characters on the periphery who might easily be caricatured. The guy who took advantage of young Joan at a party, for example, is someone we see all too often. Dillon lets the script do its work.

Phelps gives a spirited, tough-kid performance as Sharon. She has the most dreams and youthful optimism of the three. Kinnunen plays Leah with a greater maturity, a souful weariness with the world. Joan is the richest character in dimension and Gunyou Halaas is excellent with a cynical, very smart and knowing demeanor. The three work very well together.

Baber Coyle's play does not quite maintain its energy over two hours. I know theaters love the opportunity to sell munchies and drinks during intermission, but "Watermelon Hill" — a modest and contained story — seems like one of those plays that would be stronger at 100 minutes, straight through.

I realize that wish is unlikely to be fulfilled, so taken on its own terms "Watermelon Hill" remains a story worth seeing.

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